When Dorothy Johnstone painted this portrait in 1925, both she and the sitter, Belle Kilgour, were closely connected with Edinburgh College of Art. Dorothy, a former student, had been appointed to the teaching staff as soon as she graduated but had recently had to give up her post after her marriage to another member of staff, D.M. Sutherland. Belle was still a student; she had her first picture accepted at the Royal Scottish Academy this very year and later exhibited paintings and a sculpture there between 1933 and 1944. Girl with Fruit itself was exhibited at the RSA in 1925. The rich and sensuous handling of paint is typical not only of Johnstone’s work but of much Edinburgh art in the twentieth century, while the bright acidic colours are those favoured by many Art Deco designers in the 1920s and 1930s.

Dorothy Johnstone ARSA, 1892-1980

Born in Edinburgh, the daughter of the landscape painter George Whitton Johnstone, Johnstone studied at Edinburgh College of Art, winning a travelling scholarship to Italy in 1910. She joined the staff of the college in 1914, but had to give up her post on her marriage to the artist D.M. Sutherland in 1924. Johnstone was a gifted member of the Edinburgh Group, exhibiting at all three shows mounted by the group in 1919-21.
From 1915 to 1924 Johnstone spent most summers at Kirkcudbright, which supported a noted artists' colony. In September 1918 Cecile Walton, the artist wife of Eric Robertson and daughter of E.A. Walton, visited Johnstone at Greengate Close, one of the cottages rented out as summer studios by the artist Jessie King and E.A. Taylor. Cecile Walton, Johnstone's portrait of her close friend, was painted in the countryside behind Kirkcudbright on that occasion and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy the following year.
Johnstone, Cecile Walton and Robertson were recognised as the three leading figures in the Edinburgh Group, and their styles of painting were closely linked, although the group as a whole did not have a distinctive style.
It was during the years up to 1924 that Johnstone produced her best works. Like many women artists of this period, she was forced to put her artistic career on hold after marrying. She did, however, continue to paint, producing landscapes and paintings of her family.